2004
Directed by Mel Gibson
I am not Christian, which might make the following post a bit awkward for some people. I gave a similar disclaimer before my Rapture post and thankfully, no one got annoyed with me (or if they did they kept it to themselves). Hopefully I can get through this without offending anybody too severely.
Basically, this film depicts the last twelve hours of Jesus' life before his crucifixion. Interesting side note, someone on my music blog recently compared me to the people who crucified Jesus for giving a negative review to a Gary Numan album. A little harsh, in my opinion.
We all know Mel Gibson is fairly anti Semitic, so I feared the worst going into this film. It is a very ugly movie that seems to revel in its gore and sadism. It seems to strange to me that crew members converted to Catholicism after filming wrapped (if that's even true). What was divine about this movie? You don't really get to see much of Jesus' life or teachings. It's pretty much two hours of Caviezel getting the shit beaten out of him. Gibson filmed this movie as if it belonged in the horror genre. Some of these scenes definitely venture into torture porn territory. I suppose his forgiveness at the end is what people find inspirational. I didn't and I resented the Book for making me sit through two hours of religious propaganda.
Anyway, I heard there is a Passion of the Christ 2 in the works. Wasn't Jesus himself the sequel? If we are sticking with the horror themes, it will probably be a zombie film.
RATING: *----
Interesting Facts:
Jim Caviezel has said that he was struck by lightning when he was filming the Sermon on the Mount scene.
Macaulay Culkin was the first choice to play Jesus.
